Upon a Star
by moonlighten
Summary: Francis is a struggling artist, barely able to afford food never mind his rent, and he's willing to try just about anything in the hope of changing his fortunes. (Fantasy AU; Scotland/France.)
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:** This story uses broadly the same setting as my fic Deva Victrix - in that it's a fantasy setting inspired by both the Roman Empire and 19th century Europe - but it's not related to the storyline of that fic, and the background and position of the characters in this are very different. Some of them _extremely_ so.  
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The lively crowds that had thronged the _Place du Tertre_ all through the day and long into the evening are thinning now as night falls, dispersing into cafes, bars and cabarets to shelter from the chill wind blowing in from the Sequana and warm themselves with wine, song and philosophy.

Francis would like nothing better than to do the same, but his day's takings wouldn't buy him much beyond a heel of mouldy bread and cup of water. Although many passers-by had paused for a moment to cast their eye over his wares, and praised his use of light and colour, the fluidity of his lines and acuity of his eye, he had made only one sale: a small sketch of a bug-eyed lapdog that the buyer had laughingly exclaimed looked the spit of his older brother.

Despite his obvious delight, he had still baulked at the silver Francis had asked for it, haggling him down to five coppers, scarcely more than the paper alone was worth.

Examining them now, under the weak, jaundiced glow of the street lamps, Francis can't even be sure that the coins aren't counterfeit ones. They're worn almost smooth and so darkened by verdigris and the accreted grime from the many hands they've passed through that the words embossed on their reverse side are illegible, and the head on the obverse could just as well be Francis' own as the Emperor's.

Yet another day wasted.

He packs up his easel, paintings and sketches, and heads away from the light and laughter of the Place, heading down the already sleeping back streets of Montmartre towards home: a large, six storey sandstone house built in the ubiquitous Lutetian style, identical in every particular to its neighbour and countless others across the full sprawling spread of the city, on both sides of the river.

The ground floor houses the office of a lawyer, the floor above, the man himself, his pretty young wife and their three stout children. They keep early hours, and their apartment stands dark, but a few of the windows of the floors above are illuminated still by oil lamps or flickering candlelight.

Nevertheless, it is past midnight, and the building's outer door is locked tight. Francis raps upon it, and after a few minutes – and a great deal of muffled cursing – the latch lifts and it swings open to reveal the porter, clad in his nightshirt and a pair of hastily-donned trousers, which he appears to have grown tired of buttoning halfway through the enterprise.

"M. Bisset," Francis says, bowing deep. "My apologies for the late hour, and for rousing you from your bed."

M. Bisset's bloodshot eyes narrow, and he holds out a hand, expectantly open-palmed.

Francis sighs, and drops two of his hard-earned coppers into it, which, though sufficient to earn him entry, is not enough to earn him either a smile or a word of thanks, seemingly. M. Bisset relocks the door and then returns to his own quarters, all in the same, sullen silence.

The stairs that lead to Maître Lambert's apartment are plushly carpeted, their banisters buffed to a gleaming polish, but those that lead to the upper floors are dark, narrow, and perilously steep. By the time Francis reaches his attic room, he's lightheaded, short of breath, and his hands are shaking so violently that it takes him three attempts before he's able to successfully align his key with the keyhole and turn it.

The small room itself is black as pitch and bitterly cold, as Francis hasn't been able to afford fuel for his portable stove for almost a fortnight now. He has had to do without lamp oil for even longer, but he still has the stub of one candle, left over from the box he had bought during the brief period of plenty he had experienced after Me. Lambert took pity on him and purchased a painting to hang in his office downstairs.

He lights it, sets it atop the chest of drawers that serves as his dressing table, dining table, and on those occasions that he is fortunate enough to afford coal, a kitchen counter, and inspects his meagre food stores.

Francis had once prided himself on his ability to prepare a feast from even the humblest of ingredients, but, even if he did have access to a kitchen fully-stocked with the finest herbs and spices on offer from all four corners of the Empire, he very much doubts that a lump of elderly cheese and some slivers of ham could ever inspire him towards greatness.

Despite the yawning emptiness of his stomach, neither of them looks particularly appetising, but as the ham has taken on an oily, iridescent sheen since he breakfasted on it that morning, the cheese seems the wiser choice.

After he has carefully carved the worst of the mould off it with his penknife, the lump is little better than a morsel: gone in two bites, and Francis' hunger is all the more acute afterwards for having had that tantalising taste but nothing more.

He sits down on the edge of his bed, and concentrates on the sound of the wind whistling beneath the eaves of the roof in a bid to ignore the incessant demands of his body. A book would serve as a far better distraction, he knows from experience, but the weak light of the guttering candle is far too faint to read by. For a brief moment, he allows himself to admit that he may well have made a mistake.

He's roused from his reverie a few moments later by a determined hammering on his door and Gilbert's voice, shouting out, "You still up?"

Though Francis knows he's unlikely to be decent company himself in his current state, there are few people of his acquaintance more distracting than Gilbert. Selfishly, he calls back, "Let yourself in."

The door flies open with great force, presumably kicked open as both of Gilbert's hands are full: the left clutching an oil lamp and bottle, the right, a covered plate.

"Luise saved you a little something from our dinner," he says, thrusting the plate and a fork in Francis' general direction as he passes by en route to the chest of drawers to set down his lamp. Francis grabs hold of them with a greedy fervour that, in better times, would have shamed him to the core. "It'll be stone cold by now."

Francis doesn't care, no more than he cares that the meal is stolidly Germanian fare – fried potatoes, pickled cabbage, and a thick sausage of highly dubious origins – that he would have turned up his nose at in disgust less than a year ago.

Gilbert sits down on Francis' one, rickety chair and watches him eat, looking impressed by the speed with which he is able to shovel food into his mouth. Even his amused fascination fails to shame Francis, and he applies himself with same, industrious determination until the plate is entirely wiped clean.

"You're not usually back this late," Gilbert then observes. "I take it you had a bad day?"

"No worse than yours, I imagine," Francis says, capable of magnanimity now that his belly is full.

Though the apartment Gilbert shares with his brother and sister on the floor below Francis' is larger and better appointed – boasting carpeting and a fireplace, if not running water – and his work as Me. Lambert's clerk commands a steady wage, he had once expected far greater things.

He had studied law at the Sorbonne, but that had been in more peaceful times. Tensions have been rising along the border with Germania these past five years, and Germanics – even those who, like Gilbert, have lived in Gallia since their infancy – are treated with deep suspicion once more. Certainly, no Lutetian would dare risk employing a Germanic as their lawyer, so Gilbert has to waste his talents as a clerk, even though he finds the work tedious and Me. Lambert's constant demands on his time insufferable.

"I'll drink to that," Gilbert says, moving to fill Francis' two remaining uncracked glasses from the bottle he had brought with him.

The clear liquid looks innocuous, but Francis has sampled enough of the Schnapps Gilbert prefers by now to know that it will be powerful enough to knock him flat on his back in short order, despite its deceptively delicate, fruity flavour. He takes a sip from his glass; Gilbert throws back his own measure in one swallow and then pours another.

"I sold only one piece today," Francis says. "The little sketch of Mme. Bernard's Papillon."

"Someone actually wanted _that_?" Gilbert screws his nose up in disgust. "It was fucking ugly."

"Ah, but that was the fault of the subject matter, not my pen." Or, at least, Francis would very much like to believe. The fear that he is deceiving himself is a tenacious one, though, clinging on even after he's thrown caution to the wind and downed the rest of his Schnapps in the hopes of dislodging it. There is bravado at the bottom of the glass, if nothing else; sufficient that Francis can claim: "I'm certain all would be well if I could just make a name for myself."

"You've already got one," Gilbert says. "If you used your real name, then people would be lining the streets to buy your paintings."

Francis often rues confessing his true origins to Gilbert on another Schnapps-fuelled night much like this one, as his friend throws them back in his face whenever he complains about his lot now, denying him the succour of self-pity.

"But only for the novelty of it," he says. "I want people to fall so deeply in love with my paintings that they can't _bear_ not to buy them. I want to make more than a few coppers a day. I want to eat decent food again, and—"

"You don't have to starve yourself, though, or live in this shithole," Gilbert says. "You could go back to your fancy estate in Augustodunum tomorrow if you wanted to. Or write a letter to your mother and get her to send you a… a whole chest full of gold coins."

"True," Francis says; Maman would have him set up in a mansion in St Germain between one breath and the next if he were to even hint that he desired such a thing, but: "I wouldn't have earnt it, though. I want to prove to her that I'm worth more than the life she'd planned out for me."

"Right. You can't bring yourself to suffer the terrible hardships of practising the harpsichord and looking pretty. So you've told me. _Hundreds of times_." Gilbert rolls his eyes, evidently frustrated, then refills both Francis' glass and his own. "Come on, let's talk about something else. Something that doesn't make me want to kick your arse until you see sense."

Whilst that oft-made threat has thus far never been actualised, Gilbert _is_ liable to storm off back to his apartment and take his Schnapps along with him if Francis doesn't comply. Contrite, he changes the subject.

They talk of the law, of novels and music, until Gilbert's bottle is empty and the sound of birdsong seeps down through the roof.

"Fuck," Gilbert spits when he hears it. "I'm due to start work in a couple of hours. I should go back downstairs and try and get some sleep."

He launches himself up from his chair and manages a couple of wobbly steps before he loses his footing and has to grab hold of the headboard of Francis' bed to steady himself.

"Fuck," he says again. "I don't think I'm going to make it."

"You could always stay here," Francis says, patting the mattress beside him. "The extra body heat would be very welcome, believe me."

Gilbert eyes his hand warily. "I don't think Matthieu would like that," he says, clearly reading something far more salacious into Francis' suggestion than he'd intended. Even if he did desire Gilbert in that way, he would have neither the will nor the spirit to perform at _this_ hour and after _that_ much Schnapps. "No, I'll go."

This time, he gets one step further before pitching forward, hands grasping at France's shoulders to check his descent. Their eyes meet, and for a moment, everything is silent and still. Gilbert's gaze grows so intent that Francis starts to suspect that his thoughts have taken a libidinous turn, after all.

When Gilbert leans closer, he's sure of it, but Gilbert's lips do not meet his as he'd expected, but instead move close to his ear.

"Knowing who your father is, I shouldn't be suggesting this," he whispers, "but I trust you. Have you ever been to the market in Montmartre?"

"The one on the _Rue des Martyrs_?" Francis says. "Yes, of course. Many times."

"No, not _on_ the street," Gilbert says. " _Below_ it. In the cellars and sewers underneath, there's another market. It sells… different things than the one on top. There's an entrance in the outhouse behind the butcher's shop. If you mention my name, they should let you in.

"They're bound to sell something there that'll help you with your art."


	2. Chapter 2

Francis had been expecting something more impressive. Something sinister and shadowed, or else covered in strange sigils and illuminated by lambent, eldritch lights. Something that might hint at the dark secrets supposedly hidden within it.

But what he finds in the yard behind the butcher's shop on the _Rue des Martyrs_ is exactly what Gilbert had told him to expect: a privy. A small shed abutting the back wall of the building constructed from gnarled, weather-beaten wooden boards and buckled tin.

Inside, there is only a bent nail hammered into one wall onto which a sheaf of torn newspaper scraps has been hung, and the 'commode' itself. Thinking that it might conceal a ladder, Francis lifts its wooden seat and cautiously peeps beneath it. The putrid stench is so thick and heavy that it feels almost like a physical assault, battering at Francis' chest and stomach until they're sent into spasm, causing him to retch. He presses his pocket handkerchief hard against his nose, stoppering his nostrils, and breathes shallowly through his mouth until the urge to vomit passes.

If there is truly a ladder, it must be buried deep, and Francis' circumstances aren't yet quite dire enough that can summon up the mental fortitude required to dig through effluent in search of it. More likely, there isn't a secret entrance or even an illicit market, at all. Gilbert often spouts nonsense when he's deep in his cups – though not often with such sincerity – and had doubtless cobbled together his story out of snippets of rumour and old wives' tales. Maybe it had even seemed true at the time, and Francis had thought it _sounded_ true only because he was desperate.

It would certainly explain why Gilbert has refused to be drawn on the subject of the market since that night. He probably feels just as foolish for talking about it as Francis does for having believed him.

He turns immediately on his heel with the intention of hurrying away and never telling a soul about this moment as long as he lives, but at the threshold of the privy's door he hesitates, struck by an idea almost as ridiculous as the decision he'd made to come here in the first place.

And Francis knows that if he ignores it, he'll regret his inaction and worry and wonder about what might have happened if he'd chosen differently until he comes here a second time and tries again, thus doubling his chances that someone he knows might spot him in the process.

Experimentally, and with a great deal of attendant embarrassment, he calls out, "Gilbert Beilschmidt sent me."

The floor rumbles beneath his feet, and then with a loud booming sound like a crack of nearby thunder, one of the privy's walls falls away. Through the gap where it had stood, Francis cannot see the yard as would be logical, but a small, wood-panelled room containing only a steep set of stone stairs leading down into darkness.

Francis should run – he feels, thinks, _knows_ he should – but his feet carry him towards the stairs seemingly of their own volition. As he descends, sconces bearing fat tallow candles emerge from the stone walls, dripping puddles of soft, buttery light across the steps ahead of him. They stink of rotten eggs. Of _magic_. Francis has read all of the Emperor's many denunciations of the art; he knows the signs well.

Fear grips his body tight with chill, taloned fingers, but still he can't turn around, he can't stop, until he reaches the foot of the stairs and fetches up at an unprepossessing wooden door, pitted with age, that swings open at his touch onto a room crowded with low, tattered sofas and armchairs. Ashen-faced men and women sit slumped upon them, scarcely stirring except to raise their pipes to their mouths. The arched ceiling is almost obscured by a vast grey cloud of aromatic, musky smoke.

Francis recognises that smell, too. It's dragonweed. Gilbert has directed him to a dragonweed den. Strangely, that's as much a disappointment as it is a relief, despite his earlier trepidation over what he might be walking into.

Many people do find inspiration at the bottom of a bowl full of dragonweed, but Francis is not one of them. He has tried the drug once before, when he was little more than a boy and trying to impress a much older man, and it had only served to make him muzzy-headed and lethargic for an hour or so. He'd spent the next three vomiting into a chamberpot, wishing he was dead, and he vowed thereafter to never partake again.

A stout, bow-legged man detaches himself from the shadows huddled in the far back corner of the room, and sidles towards Francis, not stopping until he's uncomfortably close and Francis can smell the cheap wine souring on his breath. He has the well-worn face of a boxer: his cheeks ruddy with a spiderweb of broken veins, his nose crooked, and his jug ears swollen and lumpy from repeated blows.

"What will you be having?" he asks Francis.

"Nothing, thank you," Francis says. "I was just—"

"Gawping," the man finishes for him, his raspy voice deepening to a warning growl. "Well, we don't cater to sightseers round here. Go on, piss off."

Francis would gladly comply, but when he looks back to where the stairs had been, there's nothing but a blank, stone wall.

"Where to?" he asks helplessly.

"Your first time here, is it?" the man says, smirking.

Francis nods. "My friend Gilbert Beilschmidt recommended I come."

"Gil?" The man's mouth splits into a grin wide enough to display all of his few remaining teeth. "How is the red-eyed bastard? He used to come down here most weeks when he was a student, but we haven't seen him for nigh on a year now."

"He's well," Francis says. "He's a clerk for—"

But, once again, the man doesn't allow him to finish speaking. He grabs hold of Francis' arm and then drags him to the other side of the room, towards another seemingly featureless wall.

"If you're not after dragonweed, you'll be wanting the market. You just press here" – the man raps his knuckles against a brick, slightly darker than its neighbours – "and say the password."

"Which is?"

"This week, it's 'marmalade'."

At that word, the wall dissolves just as the privy's had done, revealing a huge natural cavern illuminated by the galaxy of glittering lamps that are hanging from the awnings of the wooden stalls squeezed in and amongst the stalagmites which litter the floor; a distorted, subterranean mirror of the market that – presumably – lies miles above them on the streets of Montmartre.

"Enjoy," the man says, shoving Francis hard in the small of his back.

Francis staggers forward a few steps, and by the time he's found firm footing again, both the man and the wall have disappeared.

The only way to proceed, it appears, is onwards, and he wends his way slowly through the stalls, examining their wares, but nothing looks fitting or captures his interest.

One stall is festooned with bamboo cages containing tiny birds with vibrant feathers, the next sells medicines which, even at a glance, are clearly counterfeit, and the next, tiny charms made of bone and twine that the stallholder tells Francis will bring him good luck, prosperity, and, if he has the need of such a thing – which, she assures him with a wink, she's quite sure he does not – increase the size of his endowments to quite prodigious proportions.

Most of the stallholders promise him that last, in their efforts to hawk their lotions, potions, and alleged spells. The ubiquity of it not only makes Francis wonder about the kind of clientele that usually frequents the market, but also causes him to lose any faith he might have had in the efficacy of their products.

The stalls thin out towards the rear of the cavern, where the ceiling dips down so close to the ground that Francis has to duck his head to avoid knocking himself out on low-hanging stalactites, and their goods look cheaper, shoddier, and the stallholders' expressions are even more desperate.

He almost despairs of finding anything of use there, but just as he's set to move on, one stall in particular catches his eye. Unlike, all of the others in the market, it has nothing out on display.

Intrigued, he draws closer. The stallholder, a sallow-faced young man with lanky brown hair, smiles at him, slow and lazy.

"I can make all your wishes come true," he says. His voice is high and thin, the words lent a lilting musicality by some accent Francis does not recognise.

"You can?" Francis asks. "How?"

"With magic, of course!" The man's lips part as his smile broadens, baring small, widely-spaced teeth filed into sharp points. Francis has read that that is the custom in certain regions of the Empire, though he cannot recall where. "What else?"

"Really?" Francis drawls. "And how do you propose to do that? With a spell?"

Despite Emperor's – and many of his subjects' – fear of magic, Francis has never believed it to be as powerful as he claims. All he's heard it being used for is illusions that are little better than sleight of hand or parlour tricks, not unlike the disappearing walls and appearing candles that he has been witnessed today.

"Not exactly," the young man says. "I will show you in a moment, Monsieur…"

"Cordier," Francis supplies into that expectant pause. "Francis Cordier."

"And I am Elias." The young man clasps Francis' hand briefly. His skin is cold and clammy, but then the cavern is very damp. "Now, M. Cordier, what is it you wish for?"

Francis has thought about the answer to that question often throughout the many cold, hungry nights he has contemplated making a visit here. If his tutors were to be believed, he has plenty of talent, but there is clearly still something lacking in his work; something he fails to see.

"A muse," he says. "Like in the old Graecian myths."

"So, you are an artist?"

"I'd like to think so," Francis says, shrugging one shoulder. "But no-one ever wants to buy my paintings."

"Ah, I think I can remedy that." Elias reaches into the pocket of his shapeless grey jacket and produces a small emerald-green glass bottle with a silver-filigreed stopper. "There's formidable magic in here. It should be able to bring you everything you desire."

"A djinn?" Francis guesses, but the suggestion only makes Elias laugh.

"No, not a djinn," he says. "Not quite _that_ formidable. But it is effective. Strong. Here" – he presses the bottle into Francis' hand – "feel for yourself."

The glass is warm to the touch, and pulses like a heartbeat: a solid, steady rhythm that reverberates up through Francis' arm and echoes around his chest. His own heart pounds harder, his head spins, and he's assailed by a sudden, frantic desire to possess the bottle.

"How much?" he asks, his voice cracking on each word.

He has a gold eagle's-worth of copper hawks and silver falcons in his purse, just enough to pay next month's rent on his room and studio space. It's all the money he has, but, in this moment, he's willing to give it to Elias just for the chance to hold onto the bottle for a little while longer.

"Oh, I don't want your money," Elias says, flashing his shark's teeth at Francis again. "I want…"

His voice drops so low that Francis has to lean in close just to hear him. Their gazes lock, and Elias' pupils bulge and expand, bleeding out across his sclera until his eyes are as black and fathomless as the ocean on a moonless night. Francis feels as though he's drowning in the depths of them: cold, weightless, and gasping for breath.

"I want a favour, M. Francis Bonnefoy," Elias says. "Just one, in return for one wish."

A frisson of unease shivers down Francis' spine at the sound of that name, but it's barely even noticeable above the ache of his air-starved lungs and the buzzing inside his skull, so he ignores it.

Instead, he nods.

"Marvellous!" Elias says, clapping his hands together briskly. "No need to give me an address, I'll find you when it comes time to collect it. And now, our business is done."

He presses a thumb to the centre of Francis' forehead, and Francis' vision whites out and he falls back, back into a hot, smothering darkness that feels nothing like sleep.

Nonetheless, he wakes some time later in his own bed with no recollection of how he might have come to be there. His first guess is that he had inhaled far more dragonweed smoke than was good for him, and he'd wandered home in some kind of fugue state, but the bottle he's still clutching tight puts paid to that hope.

Or maybe not, because now it's cool and still, just as glass should be, and looks distinctly less impressive under the dim light of Francis' one remaining candle stub than it had in the cavern market. It's scratched, chipped in places, and the silver coating of the stopper is peeling.

Still, Francis makes his wish, just in case. "I wish I had a muse."

For a long moment, nothing happens, and Francis is set upon throwing the damn thing away just as he would any other piece of rubbish, when it suddenly flares with a bright, golden light and the stopper shatters.

The bottle disgorges a dense bank of shimmering, sulphurous mist, which fills Francis' room from side to side, floor to ceiling.

When it clears, there is a man standing by Francis' chest of drawers. A very tall, very broad man wearing an off-white shirt, frayed trousers, and the expression of someone who has been awoken prematurely from a much-needed sleep.

"What in the hells…" he breathes, glancing around himself in obvious confusion. His gaze sharpens when it falls on the bottle in Francis hands, and his scowl darkens yet further. "For fuck's sake, Elias again? I'm going to snap his scrawny wee neck the next time I see him."


	3. Chapter 3

The strange man loudly and inventively curses Elias' name several more times, and then holds a hand out towards Francis, his palm flat and expectant.

"Could I take a look at that?" he asks, nodding towards the bottle.

Francis passes it over readily, curious to see what the man – or, perhaps, it would be more fitting to call him a _creature_ , for all that he resembles a regular human in every particular – might make of his prison from the outside.

He certainly doesn't seem much impressed, and his heavy brows bristle indignantly when he holds it up close to his eyes to better squint at the faint markings that Francis had been unable to make any sense of, etched on the underside.

"This piece of crap can't have cost more than a couple of coppers," he growls. "I'm insulted."

So much so, seemingly, that he can't bear to hold the bottle for a moment longer, and hurls it, overarm, at the wall at the foot of Francis' bed. It collides with a sharp crack, dislodging a chunk of plaster before it splinters into a myriad tiny, jagged shards that will be impossible to piece back together again.

Taken aback, Francis gapes at the small pile of glass, and then at the man, who looks strangely unconcerned by this sudden act of destruction, rather than relieved or exultant, as he would have expected given the tales of such things he has read.

"Why did you do that?" he asks. "Won't you have to return to your bottle once your service to me is done?"

"What?" The man gapes at Francis, in return. "Gods above, I wasn't _living_ in the bottle. How in the hells would I have fit? There was a summoning spell carved into the glass, and I had to answer it, because…" His cheeks flush crimson, and he looks hurriedly away, discovering in the process an apparent fascination with Francis' chair. He stares at it with a fierce and determined intensity. "Because that's how summoning spells work."

"So, you're not a djinn?"

The man's answering laughter is rich with what sounds to be genuine amusement. "Do I look like a fucking djinn?"

Francis' only exposure to djinn came from the book of children's stories Maman used to read to him as a boy. Though his visitor does have a deficiency of both horns and fire-filled eyes, he'd always assumed that the book's illustrators had employed a considerable amount of artistic licence in their depictions, and had no more familiarity with djinn than he did himself.

"I wouldn't know," he says.

"Believe me, I don't," the man says. "I'm no djinn."

"What are you, then?"

"Elias didn't tell you?" The man spits out another imprecation, and then says, "I'm one of the fair folk."

Whilst the man might be exceedingly handsome, the strong, clean lines of his nose, chin and jaw putting Francis in mind of the statues of long-dead heroes that grace the Imperial gardens in Roma, he has never heard tell that good looks confer any powers beyond the physical.

The man, he thus assumes, must expect him to take some other meaning from his words. "The what?" he asks.

"From the Otherworld?" The man wrenches his gaze away from the chair in order to boggle at Francis once more. "Fuck's sake, do you mortals not learn anything about the old ways anymore?" When Francis can only meet his incredulous expression with a blank stare, he heaves a heavy sigh. "One of the fae."

Francis' own laughter is shocked out of him, harsh and explosive. "A faerie?" he says, shaking his head. "You can't possibly be."

The man – the alleged _faerie_ – scowls at him. "Why not?"

"I've seen pictures of faeries and they're _tiny_ ," Francis says, holding his thumb and forefinger a few inches apart in demonstration. "They make their homes in toadstools, and… and ride on the back of beetles!"

"Well, we're not," the man says shortly. "Perhaps we were just standing really far away when that artist saw us. Or, more likely, they just made the whole thing up."

"Clearly so! They also gave you wings."

"I have wings, I just keep them hidden most of the time because they're a fucking nuisance. I was just about muck out my cow byre when you dragged me here, and straw sticks to them like nobody's business."

"Really?" Francis says sceptically. How very convenient. He's beginning to think that this is all some sort of elaborate hoax: the man, Elias, maybe even the market. If they think they're going to con him, though, they've got another think coming, if only because he's got nothing whatsoever worth stealing. "Show me."

He expects the man to demur, deflect, and ultimately invent some reason why he can do no such thing, he instead merely grumbles under his breath, and after a wary glance up at the low ceiling, closes his eyes.

With a soft pop of inrushing air, wings sprout from between the man's shoulder blades, double-lobed like a butterfly's, and, like a butterfly's, they are covered with coloured scales: bright green around the edges, fading to a pale gold at the centre. The unfurl slowly, like a flowers petals opening towards the light, and at their full extent, their rounded, upper tip reaches a foot or so above the man's head, crumpling against the rafters.

A light rain of dust and cobwebs patters down on the man's head, and he winces. "See, I told you they're a nuisance," he says. "Are you satisfied that I am what I say I am now? Can I put them away again?"

"Yes, please do." Wings or no, Francis cannot be certain that the man truly is one of the fae, but it seems clear that he is _something_ other than human. Something magical. "Can you do what Elias promised me, then? Can you grant me a wish?"

"I suppose so," the man says, slow and hesitant. "Just as long as you're not expecting become Emperor or forge world peace, in any case. I'm not _that_ powerful, no matter what Elias might have told you."

"No, nothing like that," Francis says. "I want you to help me with my art."

"Your art?" The man's eyebrows arch high, mouth slackening in surprise. "That's a new one. I've done this a fair few times now, and everyone else who's summoned me has either wanted a few more coins in their pocket, or a few more inches on their—" He cuts himself with a sharp cough, his colour rising again. "Anyway, they've wanted simpler things. I'm not sure what I'll be able to do about _art_. Why don't you show me some of your paintings…"

"Francis," Francis says, when the man's voice trails off into a questioning pause. Belatedly remembering his manners, he holds his hand out to shake. "And you are?"

"Alasdair," the man says, ignoring Francis' proffered hand. "Or Aly, if you prefer."

"Aly," Francis repeats, feeling oddly disappointed. Supernatural creatures – fae or otherwise – always have such charming, fanciful names in the storybooks, nothing so common-place or prosaic as _Alasdair_. "That's a Caledonian name, is it not?"

"I wouldn't know." Alasdair dismisses the observation with a shrug. "Now, come on. Enough chit-chat, I've got cows to see to. Show me these paintings."

The greater part of Francis' collection is stored in his studio, but the few paintings he keeps on hand for sale are, he thinks, a good representation of his body of work. One by one, he passes them to Alasdair, who studies them with gratifying thoroughness, and a keen, careful eye.

"They're good," he says after setting the last aside. "Nice use of light. Your perspective's a little off, though."

"It is?" Francis asks, dumbfounded. "I've had many tutors over the years – some of the finest at their craft – and they've never even suggested such a thing."

"Maybe it's a human thing? Might explain the wee faeries," Alasdair says with a swift grin. "Otherwise, you're obviously talented. Why do you need my help?"

"I've found that talent obviously isn't enough," Francis says. "No-one wants to buy what I'm selling."

"Do you want me to cast a glamour over your paintings?" Alasdair says. "I could make it so that anyone who looks at them would _need_ to have them, and they'd feel as though their heart was about to up and burst until they did."

Such magic, or something very much like it, would go a long way towards explaining how Elias had persuaded Francis that he couldn't bear to parted from the bottle from the very moment he held it in his hand. Having felt that unnatural magnetism himself, Francis has no doubts that what Alasdair suggests would work, but it's far from what he desires.

"No," he says. "I don't want to trick anyone."

Alasdair frowns. "What _do_ you want, then? What did you wish for?"

"A muse."

"Like those Graecian ladies?" At Francis' nod, Alasdair's frown deepens. "I'm not sure I'd be much use for that, Francis. For one, I don't exactly have the right sort of build for a toga."

Francis would beg to differ, but that's beside the rather more pressing point at the moment, so he forbears correction and instead asks, "So, is there nothing else you can offer me, other than bewitching people?"

"Well, I can't change your nature, but like I said you've already got talent, and as for inspiration…? I'm not exactly very artistic myself, so…"

Alasdair falters into silence, his gaze turning inward, and remains silent and unmoving for so long that Francis begins to fear that he's been forgotten entirely.

"Alasdair?" he calls out tentatively, and, even more tentatively, touches the tips of his fingers to Alasdair's arm. The fabric of his shirt feels no different to mundane cotton, and the flesh beneath is solid and blood-warm. "Are you—"

"I think I might have an idea of how I can help you," Alasdair says, suddenly shuddering back into life once more. "Just… You wait here, I'll be right back."

Then, with nothing more than a twitch of his fingers and a barked word in a language Francis doesn't recognise, he vanishes.


	4. Chapter 4

"I went to the market," Francis admits, after he and Gilbert have shared one too many glasses of Schnapps in his room.

"You did?" Gilbert glances at him slantwise from his customary seat on Francis' chair. His feet are propped up on the end of Francis' bed, ruckling up the blankets and covering them with road dust and crumbs of dried mud, but Francis is too drunk to care. About a lot of things, seemingly. "And how did that go?"

"Poorly. I met a very odd man there. He knew my name." Francis' heart pounds hard against the cage of his ribs as he speaks the words. He'd forgotten about that until this very moment, with his thoughts flowing loose and free, unmoored by alcohol. Or, at least, he'd forgotten to wonder about it. "My _real_ name."

"Maybe he was from Augustodunum? He could have recognised you."

"I don't think so," Francis says. "His accent wasn't right. And his teeth were all sharp and pointed, like a shark's. I shouldn't think there are many people who look like that in Augustodunum."

"No more than there are in Lutetia, I imagine. Did you happen to stop by Victor's place beforehand?" Gilbert raises one hand to his mouth and mimes puffing on a pipe. "Partake of a little Dragonweed?"

"I did not," Francis insists, affronted. "I wasn't seeing things, Gil. He really did have shark's teeth. And black eyes. Not bruised, but _empty_. He sold me a bottle that he said would grant me a wish."

"And did it?"

Francis snorts derisively. "No, but it did summon a faerie."

"A faerie?" Gilbert's mouth twitches, clearly holding in laughter. "One of those little creatures from children's stories?"

"Yes, only he wasn't little. He was very tall and very… strapping, but he did have wings. Enormous butterfly wings."

Gilbert finally loses his grip on his self-control, and laughs so long and so hard that he's left gasping for breath and tears spring to his eyes. "Fran, are you sure you weren't hallucinating?"

"I was not," Francis says sharply, annoyed by the accusation and that insufferable nickname both. "You see that hole in the plaster there?" He gestures towards it. "The _faerie_ did that, throwing the bottle against the wall."

Gilbert dutifully inspects the hole, but it clearly fails to sway him. "So, maybe someone did come here, and maybe he somehow persuaded you into thinking he had wings, but he didn't work any magic, did he? You already said he didn't grant your wish. I think they were taking you for a ride. How much did that bottle cost?"

Nothing at all, or perhaps far, far too steep a price, given that Francis had failed to set any limits on the favour he now apparently owes Elias: an oversight so foolish that he's loath to divulge it to Gilbert. Instead, he says, "Nothing I couldn't afford."

"Good thing, too," Gilbert says. "Rent's due at the end of the week. Are you going to be able to pay, even though all your wishes didn't come true?"

"Just about," Francis says. He'd had an unusually successful day yesterday and sold two paintings; he'll also be able to replenish his store of candles, or buy enough food to see him through the rest of the month, though not both. "And the faerie could still help me. He said he an idea how he might be able to before he…"

"Disappeared in a puff of smoke?" Gilbert guesses, when Francis stumbles into silence, too embarrassed to continue in the face of his friend's amused scepticism, given how ludicrous the denouement of his encounter with the faerie had been. At Francis' reluctant nod, Gilbert laughs again, though not unkindly. "And when was that?"

"Three days ago," Francis says. Like a chump – or like a man who is rapidly running out of options and hope – he had taken Alasdair at his word that he'd 'be right back', and remained exactly where he was, as directed, for almost two hours awaiting his return.

"Well, don't go holding your breath that anything will ever come of it. There are plenty of charlatans working in that market, and you were likely taken in by one of them." Gilbert glances at his pocket watch, and then grimaces. "Right, I should get going. Me. Lambert will have my head if I oversleep again."

Gilbert gathers together the plates and cutlery they'd used to eat their shared – and, in Francis' case, donated – dinner, and takes them away along with the remaining dregs of his Schnapps and his oil lamp, plunging the room into inky blackness when he leaves. Just as he does every evening, faced with the prospect of having nothing better to do to while away the time until he falls asleep than contemplate the inside of his own eyelids, Francis resolves to spend his surfeit of coins on candles.

Just as he will decide come morning, when his stomach is empty and growling once more, to spend them on food.

It's a conundrum with no easy solution, but one that he can yet again defer answering thanks to Luise and Gilbert's generosity in sharing their own meagre larder.

Still, it doesn't change the fact that he could neither read nor work on his sketches even if he was as sober as a judge, and he has no choice but to lie down, close his eyes, and wait for sleep to claim him. As it's not quite eleven, that is likely to be an hour or more hence, as he is constitutionally incapable of keeping early hours, whether resting or rising.

In Augustodunum, he always relished time spent abed, but then his bed in Augustodunum had a feather mattress almost a foot thick, and his sheets were silkily smooth and flowed like water against his naked skin when he slid beneath them. He was so reluctant to leave them come morning that he'd wind them around his body, building himself a sort of cocoon, and Maman would laughingly call him her _petit chaton_ because he was as content and lazy as a well-fed cat.

His mattress now is musty, stuffed with prickly straw, and likely crawling with bugs. He takes off only his boots to sleep, but even fully clothed and with his spare frockcoat spread out over the top of his two thick blankets, he's always cold in his bed.

He lies on his front and pulls the blankets and coat up and over his head until every inch of his body is covered save for a small gap for his nose to poke through. It helps to capture his own heat, but also to smother all noise outside himself. He can't hear the rats scrabbling in the spaces between the walls of his room, only the susurrus of his own breathing and the slow, measured, and comforting rhythm of his heart beating.

Lub-dub. Lub-lub. Lub-dub.

That familiar pounding thump seems to grow louder, stronger, and eventually culminates in a resounding crash, closely followed by a hissed, "Shit."

Francis sits bolt upright in his bed, blankets clutched up tight under his chin, and calls out into the darkness, "Who… Who's there?"

"It's me," a deep, rumbling voice calls back from somewhere in the vicinity of Francis' chest of drawers. "Alasdair. I—" There's another loud crack, and a disconcerting splintering noise. "Fuck, I think I might have broken your chair. I can't see my hand in front of my bloody face here. Just a minute…"

Alasdair murmurs something in that unknown language again, and the room is suddenly illuminated by a bright flash of light. Francis blinks rapidly until his eyes adjust to it, and when his vision clears, he can see Alasdair, and, standing behind him, partially obscured by his bulk, another figure.

They, too, look like a man, but they must also be a faerie – or whatever Alasdair truly is – because they have wings, though red where Alasdair's were green and gently scalloped around their edges.

There any similarity ends. This faerie is at least half a foot shorter than Alasdair, and his body and features are both soft and doughy. His hair does look to be as wild as Alasdair's, but his is light and airy instead of spiky, putting Francis in mind of thistledown.

Despite these obvious and glaring differences, Alasdair nonetheless introduces the man as: "My brother, Dylan."

Unlike Alasdair, Dylan rushes forward eagerly to accept the hand Francis offers out to him. As he bends to take hold of it, the trailing end of one wing knocks against Francis' empty candlestick, sending it tumbling to the floor, and when he turns, with profuse apologies, to pick it up, the other strikes Francis in the face, dislodging a cloud of glittering, powdery red dust which tingles as it settles against Francis' skin.

"See, I told you it would be close quarters in here," Alasdair says. "Put those things away."

"Of course," Dylan says, looking contrite. He blinks once, hard, and the wings disappear. "Sorry about that." He thrusts the candlestick into Francis' waiting hand, still hanging suspended, fingers outstretched, in anticipation of being shaken. "It doesn't look to be too badly damaged."

Truthfully, Francis doesn't think that the candlestick looks any different than it did before its brief sojourn on the floor. It was already chipped, and most of the cheap paint had peeled away long since. "It's all right," he says magnanimously.

"Apologies if we woke you up," Alasdair says. "I didn't realise I'd been gone that long. I thought you'd still be sat here on your little chair, waiting for me." He looks ruefully down at the mound of broken slats by his feet that had once been Francis' chair. "Though I suppose it was a good job you weren't, all things considered."

"It's been three days since you left," Francis says, voice dragging slow in his disbelief.

"It has?" Alasdair sounds as though he finds that hard to believe, himself. "Shit, I'd only meant to be away a few minutes. Time can slip away from you in the Otherworld if you're not careful, though, and I got distracted looking for _him_."

Dylan's cheeks pink when Alasdair jabs an accusatory finger in his direction. "I was only in the garden, Aly," he says.

"Aye, but you were _supposed_ to be tending to the chickens," Alasdair says, glowering at Dylan.

"The garden's so beautiful at the moment, with the roses all in bloom." Dylan says. "I just want to savour them while I can; they'll be dead soon enough."

"So will the chickens, if you keep forgetting to feed them, and…" Alasdair sighs deeply, and pinches the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, as though in an attempt to stave off an approaching headache. "Never mind, we'll have plenty of time to argue about this later. Right now, we need to concentrate on helping Francis here, seeing as how Elias has pressed me into service again."

"He has?" Dylan winces. "I thought that was all… Well, hopefully this'll be the last time, right, Aly? What do you need me for?"

"Francis wants to get better at his art," Alasdair says. "You know more about that sort of thing than I do, so I was hoping you might have some bright ideas, because I'm stumped."

"Do you paint?" Francis asks Dylan. He would have thought faeries more inclined towards woodworking, but, then again, it's become evident that everything he's ever heard or read about the fae was more than likely fabricated whole cloth.

"A little," Dylan says. "And not very well, I'm afraid. I do like to think of myself as an artist, though. I write poetry."

"After a fashion," Alasdair murmurs, and seemingly quietly enough that his brother doesn't hear him, given that he doesn't react to this disparagement of his work. "Anyway, why don't you take a look at Francis' paintings, Dyl; see what you think."

Dylan inspects the paintings just as diligently as his brother had done, and when he's finished, he makes exactly the same critique. "Your perspective's a bit wonky. Maybe that's your problem?"

"I mentioned that, but apparently none of Francis' tutors ever picked up on it," Alasdair says. "I reckon humans' eyes must be a bit wonky. Is there nothing else you can see?"

"There's…" Dylan glances towards Francis, but doesn't meet his eyes, and then very hesitantly, obviously afraid of giving offence, says, "They're slightly… Slightly bland."

"Bland?" Francis echoes questioningly, and despite Dylan's best efforts at affecting a placating tone, a little offended.

"Lifeless might be a better word. Not that they're not technically excellent, because of course they are, but they're lacking something. I'm not explaining myself very well, but maybe…" His expression brightens considerably. "Maybe I could read you one of my poems? That should make things clearer."

Francis can't imagine how it could, but he's willing to be convinced, and says, "Please do," ignoring the increasingly frantic shaking of Alasdair's head and his mouthed, "Say no!"

Dylan grins, and as he's leafing through the thick, leather-bound notebook he produces from the inner pocket of his shabby brown jacket, Alasdair strides across the room and sits down heavily on the bed next to Francis. He shuffles around afterwards, trying to find a comfortable spot on the lumpy mattress, and his arm brushes up against Francis', first at the shoulder and then at the elbow. Both times, he quickly jerks his entire body away, as though their brief contact has pained him.

Once he's settled to his satisfaction, he says in an undertone, "Don't say I didn't warn you."

"Are they really that bad?" Francis whispers back.

"Not bad so much as… interminable."

Before Francis can press Alasdair for more details, Dylan says, "Now, this is one of my most recent pieces. It doesn't have a title yet; I haven't been able to think of one that seems fitting."

He clears his throat, takes a deep breath, and begins to recite.

It is, as Alasdair said, not _bad_ , though a little too florid for Francis' tastes. By the time Dylan falls silent again, he has heard quite enough. But then Dylan licks the tip of his finger, turns to the next page in his book, and carries on. It had only been a pause, not an ending.

He tries not to let his disappointment show in his face, but some twitch of his eyebrows or quirk of his mouth must give him away, because Alasdair leans closer again and says, "Like I said, I did warn you. He's made me listen to this one twice. It's seven pages long."

"How wonderful," Francis says through gritted teeth, his lips still stretched into a feigned smile around them just in case Dylan glances up from the book and looks his way.

"No, it's not." Alasdair chuckles softly. "He can't seem to restrain himself since he's gone and fallen in love with one of your people."

"My people?"

"Well, likely not one of your kin, but a human. An Imperial prince, no less. Dyl's always visiting the mortal realm, and he saw him the last time he went to Roma."

Francis laughs, too. He can't help himself, imagining how any of those 'Imperial princes' might react if they knew that they'd caught the eye of a supernatural being. None of them would be happy about it; most horrified. "Ah, I'm afraid your brother will have his heart broken. The Empire does not look kindly on magic."

"Aye, we know. He falls in love at the drop of a hat, though, and never expects anything to come of it. He just likes to wallow and write scads of poetry about it."

Undisturbed by their conversation – judging by his rapturous expression, Dylan's thoughts are far from Alasdair, Francis, and the room; transported by his own words – Dylan reads on, and Francis does him the courtesy of listening to his next verse.

"If you hadn't told me, I never would have guessed this poem was about a man, at all, or even love," he confesses to Alasdair.

"His writing is pretty opaque," Alasdair says. "He's read me five of these damn things now, and all I've been able to work out is that this bloke has brown hair and brown eyes."

Which isn't even remotely helpful, as it describes all bar two Imperial princes. "I don't suppose your brother knows his name?"

Alasdair shakes his head. "Not a clue," he says. "He didn't even speak to him."

Francis listens carefully to each word of the rest of the poem, but, by the end, he is no closer to putting a name to the scant description than Alasdair.

Dylan sighs when he closes his book back up again, and gives Francis a gentle, watery smile. "That's what your paintings are lacking, Francis. _Passion_. You need a muse."

Francis' heart sinks. "Which is exactly what I wished for," he says gloomily.

"Oh." Dylan frowns. "Aly's not likely to be much help with that."

"So I came to _you_ for help, which is the point of this entire fucking exercise," Alasdair says. "Gods above, Dyl, keep up."

"Is there no-one you feel that strongly about?" Dylan asks.

Not for a long time. "No," Francis says.

"It doesn't have to be a person, I suppose," Dylan says. "Is there any place you love above all others?"

Lutetia was supposed to be that place for Francis. His muse and his inspiration. It smacks of defeat to acknowledge it, but he doesn't feel that way about the city, and is beginning to fear that he never will.

Shamefully, he has to admit: "My mother's house in Augustodunum."

"Well, then," Alasdair says, "that sounds as good a place as any to start trying to fix this for you."


End file.
